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President Park Geun-hye enters the 2016 National Strategy Meeting at the Blue House in Seoul

President Park Geun-hye’s approval rating plunged ten percentage points in the past week, dropping to under 30% and tying the low for her term.

At 30%, support for the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) was also at its lowest since the Park administration took office in February 2013. Meanwhile, support for the opposition People’s Party jumped to 25%, its highest level since its February establishment.

Gallup Korea released findings on Apr. 22 from a regular survey for the third week of April. The results showed 29% of respondents agreeing that Park was “doing a good job” at governing, down 10 percentage points from 39% the week before. Fifty-eight percent agreed that she “doing poorly” - an increase of 10 percentage points.

The 29% approval total tied as the lowest since Park took office in Feb. 2013. The same level was recorded in late January and early February 2015 amid a backlash over year-end tax filing and tax increases, and again that June during the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak.

But Gallup Korea noted a difference in the recent situation.

“Last year, it was only positive views toward President Park’s performance that dropped, while support for the Saenuri Party remained around 40%,” it said.

The most frequently cited factor for rating Park’s performance poorly was “uncommunicativeness,” which was given by 20% of respondents - an eight-percentage-point increase from last week’s poll. Other commonly cited factors were economic policy (15%) and “high-handed and/or dogmatic” leadership (12%).

Support for Park plummeted 22 percentage points from 56% last week to 34% in the traditional conservative stronghold of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. In Seoul, it dropped 14 percentage points to 25% from 39% last week. Tumbles of seven to 14 percentage points were observed across all age groups. While respondents over 60 rated Park more positively than negatively by a margin of 57% to 31%, even that support was down 14 percentage points from 71% the week before.

The Saenuri’s approval rating fell seven percentage points from last week to 30%, its lowest level since Park took office. The People’s Party enjoyed an eight-percentage-point rise in support to 25%, passing the Minjoo Party of Korea’s 24% for its highest level since being formed in February.

For the survey, Gallup Korea telephone researchers conducted interviews on Apr. 19 to 21 with 1,004 adults nationwide randomly chosen from a mobile phone random dialing sample frame. The response rate was 20% with a ±3.1% margin of error and a 95% confidence level.

By Kim Won-chul, staff reporter

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